"UNP defeated by LTTE," says Rajitha

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* "UNP defeated by LTTE," says Rajitha
Saturday, November 19, 2005, 6:13 GMT, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.

Mr. Senarathna said the LTTE needs a hardliner in the South to return to hostilities.
Nov 19, Colombo: UNP MP and Kalutara district organizer Rajitha Senarathna has said the LTTE is responsible for UNP candidate Ranil Wickramasinghe's defeat at the recently concluded presidential election.

He added that voters in most areas except the North voted for the UNP but the LTTE's political strategy stopped the majority of Tamils from voting for the UNP in the North.

The UNP candidate lost to the ruling party candidate by almost 200,000 votes.

Mr. Senarathna said the UNP had again failed to read the LTTE leader's mind. He alleged that Prabhakaran had purposely facilitated Rajapaksa's victory because the LTTE needs a hardliner in the South to return to hostilities.

"The LTTE need to skip the peace process and international safety net. Rajapaksa's appointment would help them to achieve this objective," Senarathna said.

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Tigers gambled on Rajapakse: Analysts
Web posted at: 11/19/2005 8:2:33
Source ::: AFP
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's Tiger rebels deliberately ditched the man who signed a truce with them and cleared the way for his hawkish rival to win the presidency in a calculated move that has dashed peace hopes, analysts said yesterday.

The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) prevented Tamils from participating in Thursday's presidential election thereby blocking votes that many expected to hand victory to opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe.

"What the Tigers have done is to ensure Mr. Wickremesinghe's defeat," said political analyst and former air force chief Harry Gunatillake. "They may have calculated that he was the more formidable man to deal with."

Wickremesinghe entered a ceasefire with the LTTE in 2002 and lost his job as prime minister. President Chandrika Kumaratunga sacked him, charging he had jeopardised national security by inking the truce.

Instead of delivering the minority Tamil votes to Wickremesinghe, the Tigers staged a virtual boycott and let in the hardline nationalist candidate Mahinda Rajapakse, the incumbent prime minister.

Rajapakse's tough approach to peace appears to better suit the Tigers, own reluctance to return to talks.

Gunatillake noted the Tigers have struggled to control a damaging split and want more time to rally their ranks.

Asked if he felt let down by the Tigers, Wickremesinghe said: "I had no deal with them to feel let down."

Wickremesinghe, who had earned a reputation as a keen strategist and a shrewd negotiator, appeared to have been led up the garden path by the Tigers and then ditched.

"I was never expecting to win with the votes in Jaffna," Wickremesinghe said as it became clear that the Tamils were staying at home. "If you can't win in the (Sinhalese majority) south, you can't win the country," he said.

Diplomats involved in Sri Lanka's Norwegian-backed peace process had banked on Wickremesinghe winning the presidency to inject new dynamism into a moribund peace initiative.

However, his defeat was seen putting the clock back on the peace process.

The new president has vowed he will not turn the country into a federal state and is against power sharing with minority Tamils.

"What was important about Wickremesinghe's plan was power sharing," said Sunanda Deshapriya, director at the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) think tank. "All that would be in question now." The Tiger move to keep away voters is exactly what Rajapakse's camp had wanted but could not achieve even through a supreme court petition.

Fearing that a high poll among Tamils could favour the former premier, the Rajapakse camp asked the court to stop Tamils voting in rebel-held areas, a call rejected by the judiciary earlier this month.

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